ST Jan 15, 2005, P 10

Trauma shows up in drawings and hallucination
GALLE (SRI LANKA) - PALESTINIAN children drew pictures of Israeli helicopters spitting gunfire when the intifada began; under the Taleban, Afghan children drew pictures of Islamic militants gunning down civilians.

In Sri Lanka these days, they are drawing dead bodies floating in giant waves.
'It's normal, children draw what they're experiencing,' said Dr Ajith Durusinghe, medical officer in charge of the Unawatuna psychiatric hospital in the tsunami-battered southern town of Galle.

'Children can't verbalise their feelings, so they use crayons and paper instead. It's an emotional release.'

Nursery school principal Chandra Koralage said the four-year-olds in her school, attached to the Kovillagodalla Buddhist temple here, had been 'unusually quiet'.

'They don't say much at all. They quietly play with handicrafts - and they draw a lot.'

Psychiatrist Manoj Kumara of Galle's Karapitiya Hospital said no one was sure of the Dec 26 tsunamis' long-term impact on the children of Sri Lanka, where more than 30,800 have been killed and nearly a million left homeless.

With relatives missing, homes swept away and familiar neighbourhoods turned into wastelands, it is clear that there has been great trauma.

Many people will develop what is called post-traumatic stress disorder. Symptoms include nervousness, insomnia and excessive worrying.

With children making up the biggest number of casualties, parents are expected to be wracked with guilt.

'If it's a case of a mother having been forced to give up one child to save another, the stress will be tremendous,' said Ms Linda Lam, a professor of psychiatry at Hong Kong's Chinese University.

In Thailand, tales of ghost sightings in the six worst-hit southern provinces have become endemic.

Spooked volunteers searching for bodies in the resort areas of Phi Phi Island and Khao Lak are reported to have looked for tourists heard laughing and singing on the beach, only to find darkness and empty sand.

Experts warn that it could be a result of mass trauma after living through the deadly waves and witnessing horrific scenes in their aftermath.

'This is a type of mass hallucination that is a cue to the trauma being suffered by people who are missing so many dead people, and seeing so many dead people, and only talking about dead people,' said Thai psychologist and media commentator Wallop Piyamanotham. \-- AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

ytd, my parents were talking abt e ghost-sightings at e disaster-hit places....i was rather sceptical abt it.....as it is, being psychology-trained, i didn't really tink there was such a thing as ghost...rather, i believe in dimensions.....when u die, u die....however there may b another u in another dimension & u r still very much alive there....smetimes we can accidentally step into e other dimensions & tt's when pple tink they r seeing smething supernatural.....i believe tt when u r emotionally & psychologically overloaded, u start 2 imagine a lot o things.....e neurons in ur brain r firing ever so fast & rapid tt e receptors may get all screwed up....all e hormones may also b cocked up....so tt's when u sense so many things which may juz b some hallucinations/illusions.....& i tink pple's minds r very active, they can conjure up anything......e sightings....i believe it's more o a psychological thing rather than supernatural.....